it
really was when you compared the metal that constituted it to modern
alloys. No matter how you looked at the situation, the kid was in for
a big letdown. Mallory almost felt sorry for him.

The hoofbeats of horse and rohorse crescendoed; there was the
resounding clang! of steel coming into violent contact with steel.
Mallory's spear struck Sir Galahad's shield dead center--and snapped
in two. Sir Galahad's spear struck Mallory's shield dead center--and
Mallory sailed over Easy Money's croup and crashed to the ground.

He was stunned, both mentally and physically. Staggering to his feet,
he drew his sword and raised his shield. Sir Galahad had wheeled his
horse around, and now he came riding back. Several yards from Mallory,
he tossed his spear aside, dismounted as lightly as though he wore no
armor at all, drew his sword, and advanced. Mallory stepped forward,
his confidence returning. His spear had been defective--that was it.
But his sword and his shield weren't, and now that the kid had elected
to give him a sporting chance, he would teach the young upstart a
lesson that he would never forget.

Again, the two men came together. Down came Sir Galahad's sixth
century sword; up went Mallory's twenty-second century shield. There
was an ear-piercing _clang_, and the shield parted down the middle.

Aghast, Mallory stepped back. Sir Galahad moved in, sword upraised
again. Mallory raised his own sword, caught the full force of the
terrific down-rushing blow on the blade. His sword was cut cleanly in
two, his left pauldron was cleanly cleaved, and a great numbness
afflicted his left shoulder. He went down.

He stayed down.

Sir Galahad leaned over him, unbroken sword uplifted. The cross in the
center of the snow-white shield was a bright and burning red. "Ye must
yield you as an overcome man, or else I may slay you."

"I yield," Mallory said.

Sir Galahad sheathed his sword. "Ye be not sorely wounded, and sithen
I desire not neither of they two steeds, as belike they be as unworthy
as they pieces, ye can return to thy castle unholpen."

* * * * *

Mallory blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, the shining
knight was gone.

He lay there in the moonlight for some time, looking up at the stars.
At length he fought his way to his feet and encephalopathed the two
rohorses to his side. Mounting Easy Money, he encephalopathed it to
return to the westernmost "castle of Yore" and